


Shatterdome

by SingMeALoveSong



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America - All Media Types, Pacific Rim (2013), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Adorable FitzSimmons (Agents of SHIELD), Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Coulson treats Skye like a daughter, F/M, Gypsy Danger - Freeform, Jaegers, Natasha/Barton if you squint, The Drift (Pacific Rim)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:37:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5801170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingMeALoveSong/pseuds/SingMeALoveSong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pacific Rim / AOS/ Avengers crossover. </p><p>Skye just wants to be a Jaeger pilot, but Coulson won't let her. He's dug up some jaded pilot Rogers instead, and insists she find him a suitable co-pilot. The rest is history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shatterdome

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd and probably has a million errors cause I am too tired to read through it.
> 
> So I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. And I know I should have written another chapter for As the Days, but I couldn’t help it. I really want to make this into a full chaptered fic, but I think I’d need some help. Too much plot and too many characters to iron out and keep straight! Plus I'd want to make Bucky come back somehow, in a dramatic fashion of course.
> 
> Anyway, read away!

Almost ten years ago, the first Kaiju hit San Francisco. The devastation it left its’ wake rocked the world.

An eighteen-year-old Skye had hidden in her van, hacking whatever she could and putting any information out the public that could help in the desperate attempts at escaping the path of destruction it left. She almost lost her life in the process, as a building collapsed and nearly took her van with it, but she knew it was worth it.

Steve and Bucky had joined the army not but two years ago, and had already served two tours in Afghanistan. It was how they were drafted so quickly for the jaeger program. Their shared background, all those schoolyard fights, and their time spent at each other’s back in enemy territory finally resulted in something.  
Years before you’d never pick them for heroes, they were never star athletes, but they could hold our own in a fight. 

And they were drift compatible.

-O-

Five years later, Steve watched as Bucky was ripped from Gypsy Danger’s command pod. Steve could feel the moment the Kaiju ripped bucky’s arm off, still connected in the drift. The amount of pure pain and agony caused the drift to snap closed. But Steve already knew, Bucky was gone.

-O-

A Kaiju had hit Seattle when Skye was there hacking for the Rising Tide. Damn Miles and his damn ideas. She was too close. She should have gotten out and not tried to get to that “proprietary” data Miles wanted so badly, even though Kaiju attacks left a fantastic opening to hack. She knew the likelihood of her living through this one was slim to none. 

She was sprinting down an abandoned road, and yes, that was a Kaiju chasing her. What is even her life right now, that this is happening. Three fighter jets fly over and she takes their air strike as an opportunity to hide in an alley. It can’t really be after her, there is no way. 

But alas, luck is not on her side. It tries to claw its’ way into her alley, and while she is not proud of it, she may be crying. It manages to knock the dumpster she is crouched behind, and enough is enough. She stands, her back to the dead-end wall of the alley, and screams at the monster currently trying to eat her. She’s going to go down standing, fuck everything, but she will be standing.

Out of nowhere a jaeger arm reaches around the ugly thing’s neck and rips it backwards. She kind of loses track of things for a minute, the idea that she is still alive not quite computing. When the rubble settles, she tentatively ventures out into the street. 

A man emerges from the jaeger, and stumbles out. Later, after the medics have checked her out and the jaeger crew has already started preparing to cart the big machine back to the base, she meets the pilot. His name is Coulson, and her life changes after that.

-O- 

More years pass. Steve joins the wall-building crew. He tries to escape into a world where nothing matters but the day’s job, how much work he can do with his hands, but he still takes the jobs highest on the wall, finding the view from up there familiar. He pretends like he isn’t missing something in his life, that he can run from his past. At night, the pictures on his wall mock him and he can’t sleep.

Skye puts her computer skills to work with what’s left of pan-pacific. Coulson trains her, and she finds she’s not only good at hacking, creating programs for Kaiju attacks, and finding candidates for the ever-shrinking program, but she’s also a damn good pilot candidate herself. 

-O-

As the last couple of Jaeger bases close, and everyone is moved to the Shatterdome in Hong Kong, Coulson takes off to find a pilot he once knew. Skye had seen the file, she didn’t think this Commander Rogers would help what little was left of their crew. He was a shell of a man that had served in Alaska. But she trusted Coulson, so she went ahead of him to the Shatterdome to coordinate Roger’s candidate assessment. 

-O-

“Marshall Coulson, or should I say Director Coulson,” Steve says as he drops his tools near his locker. 

“Rogers,” Coulson replies.

“I know what you want, sir, and I can’t help you.” Steve strips his protective gear off and tosses it in his locker. “I heard about the bases closing, that you’ve got one last ghost army before you get shut down completely. I can’t help, I’m useless without – “ and Steve can’t even say Bucky’s name to this man that knew him, knew them both, so well.

Coulson remains quiet, not confirming or denying anything. Steve lets out a huff of a breath, and fully turns to face him. “Coulson, I can’t have anyone else in my head again. I was still connected to Bucky when he was ripped from the pod. I felt him,” Steve finally says.

Coulson nods, but still levels Steve with a hard look. “Haven’t you heard, Soldier? The world is coming to and end,” Coulson takes a step closer. “How would you like to spend the last of it? Building a wall we both know is useless, or fighting to your last breath? I know what Barnes would have said.” With that, Coulson turns to leave. 

By the time he makes it to the helicopter after a short call back to the Shatterdome, Steve is waiting with a bag over his shoulder. They don’t say anything.

-O-

The young man who gets off the helicopter does not look a day older than his military photo, taken close to ten years ago, minus the intense beard covering the bottom half of his face. Skye greets Coulson and in turn is introduced to Commander Rogers. 

He’s not the jovial American sweetheart he played up five years ago, in his prime. The quiet man who follows her is something different. She thinks back to his file, how he had hit his growth spurt very late, been bullied before that, and was a shy counterpart to his partner Barnes. He had grown into his fame a bit, playing of Barnes’ charm. But with the loss of his partner, that persona must have faded away as well. What’s left is a more jaded version of that shy boy willing to fight.

She can feel his curious gaze throughout the tour she gives him. He doesn’t say much, just a few questions here and there. She introduces him Fitz and Simmons, their Kaiju Research Department heads. Then to the other Jaeger pilots, some he already knows. There’s Natasha and Barton in Cherno Alpha, the twins in the Crimson Typhoon, and Tony and Bruce in Eureka Striker. She also takes him by the medbay to see Thor who had recently lost his co-pilot and brother Loki. Thor’s injuries have him out of action for the next three months, but his and his brother’s sacrifice in Australia a month before saved millions of lives.

Last but not least, she takes him by the Gypsy. She had spent months with techs to get her back in shape, adding improvement suggestions here and there with Tony, and fixing a few mobility issues with Natasha’s help. He grows still next to her as they rise on the lift to get a better view.

“I never thought I would see her again,” he says as they come to a stop near Gypsy’s heart. He says it so quietly, she almost misses it.

“Is it a good thing, or a bad thing then?” She asks gently. She knows he has both good and bad memories imbedded in the metal of this jaeger. He turns to her and lets a half smile curve on his face.

“I’m not sure yet, but I’m willing to find out,” he replies. And she believes it, she sees the resolve build behind his eyes as he takes in the Gypsy again. She had had her doubts about this man, but now she knows it’s all going to be okay.

“I pulled together the best of the best that we have left, Commander.” She says as they are walking back to the bunks. “I’ve combed through the candidates to match them to your fighting style as well as your field strategy.”

“You can call me Steve,” he says as they come to a stop outside his room. “I’m not a Commander anymore.”

“Well, Steve, I hope you give them all a chance tomorrow,” she says as she turns to her bunk across the hall. He grabs her wrist, and she humors him, turning to see what he wants.

“Will you be there? I’ve seen your scores Skye, you did better than I did in pilot school.” He says, pulling her back to him. She can feel the pull, the power he has, that she’s been ignoring all day as he tugs her closer. This could be complicated.

“No, I will be there to assist, but I will not be part of the trials.” She responds. He humms lowly, and his grip smoothes up to her elbow, his gaze drops to where he is still touching her and it looks like he is just as surprised as she is by the touch.

“Why?” He asks, removing his hands, and gripping them together like they had betrayed him.

“Director Coulson has his reasons,” with that she turns for her room, discussion over. She catches him shirtless from across the hall not ten minutes later, and she can’t help the blush that races up her face. She quickly shuts the door, and shuts those thoughts down fast.

-O-

He finds her later in the evening, after he had taken a walk and caught up with Clint and Natasha over dinner, and stopped by to chat with Thor. She’s going over reports from the research personnel he met earlier, Fitzsimmons? Something like that. He catches the tail end of their report, and offers to walk her back to her rooms and help her lug the three stacks of papers the scientists had left her with.

“Thank you,” she says as he sits the reports on her desk. Her room doesn’t have much for decoration, but he spots a small Hula doll, and a picture of her and the scientists she just left among a few other baubles. 

“Can I ask you a question?” He asks as he leans against her desk.

She grins as she flops down to sit on her bed. “You just did,” she says cheekily.

He rolls his eyes, how Coulson put up with her snark is a story he will have to hear, “What I mean is, what am I doing here. Coulson has been pretty quiet, and I know they want me to pilot, but why me? I’m not exactly the best choice,” he asks as he runs a hand through his hair.

“You aren’t the best choice, and I’ve told Coulson this multiple times. You are unpredictable in battle, you often go for heroics that while, well heroic, ignore protocol and mission parameters. You’ve lost your partner and are unstable. We don’t know what will happen when you drift this time, as you’ll be bringing in some serious baggage,” she says this all as if stating facts, the simplicity of it throws him for a loop.

“Well you don’t hold any punches,” he mumbles, and she lets a small guilty half smile curl over her lips.

“I’m good at my job, and that includes assessing people for the program,” she raises from the bed, and leans over to put a hand on his shoulder. “This was all based on your actions five years ago, not who you are now. I can already tell you have been tempered by the past, and that you know the weight your decisions hold out there in a Jaeger. What matters most, and why I still put your file on Phil’s desk, was that you’ve always done what needs to be done. Barnes had the dramatic flair, but you made sure the job got done. We need that right now.”

He leaves her bunk feeling better than he has in years. This slight woman managed to turn five years of floundering into a drive of steel. Yes, Bucky is gone, but that doesn’t mean he can’t help. He will get this job done, even it if kills him.

-O-

He sees her on his morning run, and it doesn’t surprise him at all. He could tell she was a fighter, not just a desk jockey, with how she held herself. Whatever training she had in pilot school, she had kept it up.

He doesn’t try and talk to her, just nods as he takes a different path. In a matter of two days, that small woman has got him to feel more emotions beyond grief than he has in the last five years. He doesn’t understand this pull. If he were a younger man, he’d think he had an interest in her. 

But he’s not so sure, it’s something different. Maybe it comes with knowing how drift compatible people feel outside of the drift. He and Bucky used to have something similar to that pull. He knew Bucky, knew how he would react, how he acted in certain situations, what he wanted and what he needed. 

The slight pull to crowd into her space and find out everything about her is a mix of attraction and that same pull between partners. He knows they could be good in the drift, he’s just got to make her and Coulson see it.

The attraction he would just need to ignore, now (if ever) was not the time.

-O-

The trials were a bit of a disaster. No one really put up a fight, or caused that spark of connection that he had had with Bucky. Two got close, one by the name of Tripp and the other by the name of Morse. Skye’s face became pinched after he took down each candidate, and with this last one, being thrown onto the mat, her whole face displayed her displeasure.

Fed up with her constant judgment, he turned to her and Coulson, “What? Are you going to tell me why you are so displeased with their performances if you picked them all out?”

Her face grew flushed, but she responded quickly, “It’s not them I’m judging, you could have taken most of them in one or two moves, instead you drag it out as if you were bored.”

She had a point. And that flush across her cheeks stirred something in him. He usually would not go beyond protocol for things on base, but he had to slake his curiosity. “So get down here and show me how it’s done.”

Coulson’s face dropped into a deeper frown than what was previously on it, which was quite impressive. “Hold this for me D.C.” she said as she passed her clipboard to Coulson. 

“Skye I don’t think—“ Coulson started, but just sighed at the look on her face. “Don’t hurt him too much.”

The resulting match was glorious. They parried back and forth, if one got the upperhand, the other quickly followed suit. He had her pinned one minute on the mat, and the next she was straddling him with his arm in a hold he hadn’t seen before. He felt it, as they moved around each other, that spark, that connection. He could grow to know this woman, to let her in. This could work.

He turned to Coulson at the end of the match, deaf to the claps and cheering behind him. “I want her, Director.”

“No.”

-O-

He found her in her room. She couldn’t give him the answer he wanted.

“We don’t need him, you don’t have to obey his every command. I know you felt it. We could do this Skye, we could pilot Gypsy!”

Her only response was, “It’s not obedience, Steve. It’s respect.”

He watches her sit heavily on her bed, and she can’t look at him, look at the face of a man who is finally seeing daylight after years of night.

He leaves and she tries to ignore the way her heart cries out at the loss.

-O-

Coulson finds her where Steve left her. “I made you a promise once, that you would be able to stand and fight, to face things like you chose to in that alley.”

He sits on the bed next to her, and she leans into him, taking in the comfort he is offering. His arm wraps around her and they are quiet for a long moment.

“Suit up, you’re needed on the bridge in twenty,” he says and she can hear the shake in his voice, how much it pains him to say it. And her heart cries out for the second time in one day.

-O-

The handshake doesn’t go well. He blindsides her with his memories of Bucky dying, and it causes her to go off the deep end. She follows the rabbit. What Steve sees is enlightening and makes him understand her a little better. She had known about him, but her past was something they should have discussed before joining. As it is, they barely avoid blowing a hole in the base, and Coulson grounds them.

-O-

They watch as Cherno Alpha and the Crimson Typhoon go down, and he feels Skye tense next to him. He wraps an arm around her, hoping to calm her. They all know the dangers. He can here the techs talk about escape pods, and hope the pilots made it out. 

He knows Coulson has no choice, with the city in danger. He has to send Gypsy Danger out, whether or not he wants to. He feels Skye stand up straight and calm herself. A soft, “Coulson,” escapes her lips. 

Coulson turns to them, and Steve can see the image of him in a Jaeger suit from her memories. 

“Okay,” he says just as softly. Skye goes to him and hugs him, no shame at the tears at the corners of her eyes. Coulson buries his face in her neck for a short moment, then extracts himself. He nods, “Okay, suit up.”

-O-

This neural handshake is much smoother. He flows through her memories with an ease he had felt with Bucky. Maybe it is because they had both seen the things they each hide, Bucky and that alley in Seattle. He can feel her drive and passion flow through her. She will protect her people, their people.

As they calibrate the hemispheres, he turns to her. “You know I haven’t given much thought to the future.”

She turns to him, “Oh really Commander?”

“Bucky always said I had bad timing,” he says in reply and the calibration is complete. He can feel her curiosity now, just as she can feel the sparks of what can only be called want bubble up in him. 

He wants to live through this so he can take her to dinner proper, to run his hands through her hair. He can feel something bubble up in her as well, a feeling of warmth, of happiness. It’s been so long since he felt it, it took a minute to define it. He feels her desire to make him happy as well.

They look to each other, “Later” one of them says, and they aren’t sure who said it as connected as they are.

-O-

Later sees them finally escaping the celebration. Coulson had rest the clock, and they knew this was only one battle in the big scheme.

His arm is stiff, and he struggles to get his suit off. Now that Skye has seen and felt the damage the attack that he lost Bucky in did to his arm, she knows that after a Jaeger session he has trouble with it’s mobility.

A soft knock on his door, and he doesn’t have to look to know it is her. He can still feel her, a ghost connection after a drift. Pilots don’t talk about it, as it can be personal. But he can feel her, just there at the back of his mind.

He lets her in, and without asking she helps him remove the cumbersome suit. And though she does not need it, he helps her too. He tosses her a shirt to cover the simple sports bra and boy shorts she has on. He grabs a pair of sweats and turns back to her. They’re both too tired and wrung out to shower, but he knows the drift after effects will keep them awake for a bit.

He drags her down into his bunk with him. It’s not sexual, this ghost connection. But it feels better with her in his arms. He can feel her better, that spot in the back of his mind warm and fuzzy where he can feel her.

Bucky and he would spar until they were exhausted, then pass out, hands clasped; his dangling from the top bunch to hold Bucky’s from the bottom bunk. He likes cuddling with Skye much better. He feels content and whole.

He falls asleep much faster than he thought he would.

He wakes before she does, and he enjoys the way her hair tickles his neck until she awakes and drags herself to the shower.

-O-

It should be awkward, but it isn’t, she thinks. There isn’t time to really think about the changes between them. Before the pan-pacific closed, paired pilots would have months to get used to drifting together and figuring out how to cope becoming one with someone, minds melding, then ripping it back apart. They didn’t have that luxury.

She can feel him, in the back of her mind, quiet and calm. He was like a soothing presence tingling along her conscious. It’s odd, but she finds she likes it. The first neural handshake was too short, and the events after it too distracting for her to notice it. After this last battle, there is no mistaking him. 

She wonders how long it will last. She’s read papers on it, some say they feel their partner there for weeks, others say it’s gone within a day. There might be a case for touching, that it could augment the connection, but no studies have found conclusive evidence.

She finds herself pacing her bunk on the second night. It had felt so good to be near him the night before, but she doesn’t want to presume. She’s so busy pacing, she doesn’t even hear him come in (he’s been in her head, he knows her door code, great). 

“Stop thinking so loud and come to bed,” he says, just like that. He shuts her door and makes himself comfortable on her bed. And really, she can’t argue with that. He curls around her, and whispers in her ear asking if that’s okay. She just pulls his arm tighter around her and sighs into his warmth.

-O-

They get the new mission. Skye rages at the idea of Coulson going out with Tony in Eureka in place of injured Bruce. He knows though Skye’s memories that Coulson may not survive another trip in a Jaeger, his brain compromised by the early Jaeger systems before they got all the kinks out.

They pull it together, though. As they wade into the water, Coulson and Tony on their left, she finally puts her grief to rest. He can feel it, how much it hurts her, but they both know the cost of protecting.

“We’ll get him out of this,” he says, and he hopes it’s true. He can feel her sentiment that she hopes so too.

-O-

Eureka manages to detonate it’s payload, without self destructing like they had originally thought to do. The cost is that Eureka is too close to the bomb site, and is thrown in the blast. She can hear the base say they have life signs and that their escape pods have been blown. 

The gain of their sacrifice is a way into the portal. They grapple with the Kaiju, and ride it down through the rift.

Things start to get hazy for Skye, everything looks odd, like it has an extra edge. She feels Steve move next to her before she blacks out.

-O-

She wakes in her pod, gasping for breath. She can hear people yelling on the comms, and it takes her a minute to understand what’s going on.

“I’m alright,” she finally gets out, and she can hear someone relay the information to Coulson and her heart skips a beat knowing that he is alive somewhere. But her heart then skitters to a stop when she realizes she is alone. “Where is Steve?”

There is frantic rambling from the techs, saying that his pod was deployed but they have no signal. She sees it burst to the surface and wastes no time swimming after it.

It takes her a minute to scramble onto the pod, the suit mot helping her at all. When she finally gets up and gets the hatch open, she can’t find his pulse. He looks pale, so pale. All noise disappears except the pounding of her heart. She can’t feel him in her mind in all this chaos. He can’t be dead, not now after they finally can figure out that future.

She gives up finding his pulse and pulls him to her in a hug. Maybe if she just touches him, she could feel him. A small wheeze breaks her spiraling thoughts. 

“Can’t breathe, doll,” he says and she lets go of him so she can see his face. She can hear the techs shouting at her but she ignores it, taking in his smile.

He rests his forehead against hers and just holds her, “So about that future, doll, you wanna see if it works?”

She just laughs, “We’ll see, Commander.”


End file.
